What rewards does raiding need to make it more appealing?

[Flower Milk]

Hey, it's your life, but saying "because one guy is an asshole therefore I don't raid", idk, that seems more of an excuse than a massive problem when I've lived through plenty of harassment (on equal or worse levels) from my guildies. Being called a faggot (specifically because he knew I was gay) 30 times a night in an intended-to-be-homophobic way by our main tank is not my cup of tea either. So I blocked him. No more problem.

No one ever said you have to like all your guildies, though no one ever said you have to raid either. Live your life.

And that's ultimately what it came down to, WoW was a more positive experience for me rather than a stressful one when I stopped raiding because of the behavior and situations I would consistently have to put up with and having to leave guilds over it. And that's ultimately what this thread is about, how to make raiding more appealing, it would be more appealing for me if I didn't have to put up with any of that and it was a more positive experience, because that's specifically why I stopped raiding.

Ultimately this is a video game, it's meant to be entertainment and fun, and it was no fun or entertaining to put up with crappy behavior by one single guy in my raiding guild and nothing could be done about it, repeated over and over again in most guilds I joined, ad nauseum. That is how I made the decision to stop raiding.

Whether that means the solution is improving the community, or somehow making it easier to find more friendly guilds, I don't know. But those are my reasons for not raiding anymore.

[Polarthief]

Well then these "many" need to be stop being dickbags, frankly. If some guy gets a great item once in a blue moon out of activity your holiness considers unworthy, the what of it? Just cheer for the guy and move along, you are still wrecking him in 13 other gear slots as Mythic Raider.

Once again, it doesn't feel great to be mega rewarded for doing fuckall. It also teaches people, especially casuals, to why bother doing any difficult content when you can be rewarded for not doing it as well?

I also did say I don't really care if TF exists, as long as it caps at Mythic raiding. Nothing should go past that.

Some people are just dicks really. Should we design systems around spiteful people pouting over what others get? Not sure about it.

Again though, feels bad even when I get the piece.

And instead of Azerite you will have some other slots from raid locked that can't TF, hurr. Whether it's Azerite, Set or Whatever it will be the same.

They've said no plans regarding Set or an Azerite system. They also explicitly said they do not like the idea of locking slots (in regards to Benthic and Legiondairies), so... we're way less likely to have locked slots moving forward.

And that's ultimately what it came down to, WoW was a more positive experience for me rather than a stressful one when I stopped raiding because of the behavior and situations I would consistently have to put up with and having to leave guilds over it. And that's ultimately what this thread is about, how to make raiding more appealing, it would be more appealing for me if I didn't have to put up with any of that and it was a more positive experience, because that's specifically why I stopped raiding.

Okay but you're describing all group content because as soon as one other person in the world exists near you, it doesn't matter who it is, there is a chance they will be an asshole to you.
TL;DR: It has to be a solo experience, which raiding obviously never has nor never will be (besides farming legacy content, and that's hardly "raiding").

Ultimately this is a video game, it's meant to be entertainment and fun, and it was no fun or entertaining to put up with crappy behavior by one single guy in my raiding guild and nothing could be done about it, repeated over and over again in most guilds I joined, ad nauseum. That is how I made the decision to stop raiding.

I don't disagree. I still think assuming that every guild will have an asshole is a rather bad way to look at it, but again, you do you.

Whether that means the solution is improving the community, or somehow making it easier to find more friendly guilds

You're describing player-made problems though. These aren't things Blizzard can directly do, especially if you don't report toxic players. Also, you can go out and make your own guild, then ban any asshole who is sexist/harassing you.

For the umpteenth time, live your life how you want, but you can't act like this is remotely a thing Blizzard can control and don't say it's every guild therefore why bother raiding, because it doesn't happen to every guild.

[Gaidax]

Again though, feels bad even when I get the piece.

I'd recommend visiting a doctor there, m8. I certainly did not experience this, not that I actually got any of this supposed raining TF from WQs. My best shot this expansion is actually this patch ilvl 830 item, which went straight into grinder.

Just relax really. Why are you so stiff over what others get once in a blue moon? All these scary stories about TF are just a bunch of bullshit.

- - - Updated - - -

Once again, it doesn't feel great to be mega rewarded for doing fuckall. It also teaches people, especially casuals, to why bother doing any difficult content when you can be rewarded for not doing it as well?

See, the thing is - the chance for this is so small, that you can't even aim for it deliberately. To actually "reliably" get TF you need to grind so much that my 6 hours a week raiding look like peanuts in comparison.

I think it's great that game gives occasional nice surprise to the people and this is so rare, that it's really nowhere near becoming actual "issue". You don't have casuals spamming WQs rocking 445 ilvl. Heck you barely have anyone who actually managed to get even one actually great TF item from WQs.

The shit is so rare.

[Marrilaife]

And you honestly think Mythic Raiding is worth your time and rewarding enough? I don't even know what to say to you. You're defending awful designs at this point. There's a reason why raiding has been on the decline for years now, despite mechanically, they've been pretty damn good raids as of late.

Tbh there are several people with the attitude "Blizz can do no bad", and it's impossible to have any discussion with them, and if you try, it'll end up with them accusing you of pettiness or conspiracy theories. I could say at least 4 names from the top of my head that will come to a discussion only to claim "everything is fine" and argue against anybody who claims different, just for the sake of doing so.

Not gonna name and shame, but it became very obvious during the discussions around Shadowlands and what improvements people would want to see that to some it doesn't matter whether a criticism has basis or not, presents solutions or not, is constructive or not, they just wanna throw everyone in the bag of "haters" and "toxic community", no idea why are they even on forums discussing anything, because obviously discussion isn't of any interest to them, and Blizzard definitely doesn't need a solicitor, they're doing financially well, especially recently boosted with Classic subs.

- there's a lot of stuff in a raid that wastes time: totally boring, yet long, trash, the smoking/coffee/shitting-break people need, the guy that got a call from his mom, the guy that accidentally released, the guy that likes to argue, standing around while the leads discuss stuff and decide how to progress further... (yeah yeah, you can set strict rules for your people, but good "fun" probably doesn't look like that)

Stuff in the raid that wastes time is nowhere near as bad as stuff out of the raid that wastes time. Having to grind AP / essences / legendaries / benthic / m+ gear and whatever else came as a big deterrent and made a lot of people with limited time to stop bothering with mythic, or raiding in general. If a person with a job already reserves 8-16 hours a week for raiding, they shouldn't need to spend extra 10+ hours a week on non-raiding activities unless they want to (and have time for it).

The crowd of "death to raid logging" and "you don't have to do anything nobody puts a gun to your head" destroyed everything by petitioning for "optional features" to not be so optional because they're "bored" and "have nothing to do" while ignoring 90% of the game because it didn't offer a power spike rewards. So everything had to award player power, which means the raids will inevitably be tuned around maximum possible power level a player can achieve with small leeway, because Blizzard knows that if you can, someone will. And if they will, the raid becomes trivialized, like Emerald Nightmare that was outgeared on day 1.

Sorry, but the only solution is to hard gate player power so nolifers can't just trivialize content by powerfarming every source of player upgrades. And I guess that's the plan for Shadowlands - weekly gated amount of player power, and after that optional cosmetics and "fun" content. Let's see how that works, but I expect much better than current iteration. At least that should allow alts back in the picture without gruelling grinds or stealing progress from your main.

P.S. A lot of people are against "hard gating" because they feel once they fall behind they can't catch up. In that case, retroactive catch ups like in the pvp conquest bar should be put in place. But jumping ahead of the crowd needs to be limited because it affects content tuning in a very bad manner, when Blizzard has to make an educated guess what level of player power will the group have when facing that content, and since after Emerald Nightmare they always went towards "overtune first, nerf later if really necessary", even going as far as putting mathematically unkillable bosses like pre-nerf Kil'jaeden and pre-nerf Fetid Devourer.

[Carnagexz]

Nah, it's much more complicated than that. Unfortunately for the females that don't care to play that game within a game, there are a lot of "girls" that just crave male attention and actually reinforce the behaviour that flirting / creeping on is fine as long as the girl gets boosted around and other "advantages". I've seen a lot of these girls always have some entourage of creepers around them. Super prevalent in "social" guilds. However it's less common in higher levels of mythic raiding guilds because there you actually need the performance to stick around and more people care about being competitive than wooing a girl.

Sadly when I used to run raiding guild that was the most common thing I saw. At some point I literally would have a conversation with the new member when she'd reveal that she's a girl. The first thing I'd tell them, (mind you this was in BC era when men were men and women were men [near 96% of player base were dudes, and being a woman there was akin to a woman walking through high-sec prison.]) that some of these guys are decent but would be creepy since they are young and may not have ever communicated with a female outside of family. Therefore I'd be advice to keep it on the low, there's really no need to ever reveal personal stuff like that in a video game. Again a lot of young guys tend to think with the little head until older, so its troublesome.

Of course we'd fix any issues that would arise but omg, I can't tell you how often it'd turn out that the girl wanted attention or free crap. Would instantly reveal to guild that she's a girl and start leading these guys on and encouraging them to creep if they give her stuff or boost. Of course once they'd get what they want THEN those creepers become a problem, or worse they'd lead several guys on at the same time, and once they find out they start fighting among themselves (like morons.), this kind of behavior is like cancer. Seen sssoooo many guilds die because of this shit.

/10characters

No, just block away until a problem goes away, and don't reinforce that behavior. If more ladies would block creepers they'd stop creeping, its like cheesy pickup lines for some guys. They only do it because 1 in 10 fell for it so they try, pathetic and sad; I know, but thats how some guys are. My standard for quitting guild due to bad behavior is when I've blocked 50%+ of raid. Happens to everyone.

[BanterClaus]

bring back 10 man, fuck this 20 man bullshit

[Kralljin]

What I'm saying is people quit all the time, but look what slots are open for filling. Usually ranged dps and then healers.

Following that logic, i would assume that if a healer quits, you're obviously looking for another healer, same goes for ranged dps.
So yeah, guild problems, not game problems.

Guilds that recruit "all classes, exceptional players are welcome to apply" basically don't NEED anyone.

Unless the guild doesn't update their recruitment or use this as an empty message, they simply don't consider the applicant "exceptional".
Again, it feeds into the issue above, if you're a damn good player, people will take you, but if you're X and the guild already has 2-3 X, there's no point in recruiting unless any of those that play X are willing to re roll.

So that's what I mean the bigger the raid, the more range dps you need, but the melee spots don't grow.

And how does "cutting" down solve this issue?
Like, above you're talking about being unable to apply for a guild as melee, but in your suggestion you even say that it wouldn't change the total amount of melees.
So any guild still wouldn't need more melees.
You didn't create new melee slots, you most likely even cut down on melee(s) because not every guild will just flat out cut a healer and four ranged dps.
All you did was create "parity", which i doubt would even then come into existance because back when 10man was a thing, ranged were favored in raids.

Nighthold had mechanics like soaking Krosus adds or Trillax cakes that could be performed by both melee and ranged and were a dps loss to both.

Any halfway intelligent raid had their melees stick on the boss and only had them help out if the ranged couldn't handle it.
Because moving out of Melee range is obviously far more punishing for a Melee than moving for your average ranged spec.

so why not swap it for once?

The big difference is that the remaining Ranged did the legwork whereas the Melees had a free pass on a large portion of this fight.
I wouldn't give a damn about the Ranged vs. Melee discussion, but if the most of the abilities cannot even target a certain group, which in that case represents the majority of the raid, that's a problem.

When there's a ranged heavy fight, they still had to play almost any mechanic, rather than tunnel the boss down barring one or two mechanics.
I'd criticize the same thing about a fight if melees had to dance around while Ranged could sit back, but that's rarely the case.

Sorry, but melees simply have the comfort of having to deal with less mechanics at the expense of having less slots.

And maybe, just maybe, if they have such a big problem inventing encounters balanced around a lot of melee they shouldn't have put 9 melee classes vs 6 ranged in this game? It's inherently unfair we need more ranged to fill the raid while the game has 50% more melee classes than ranged ones.

Fair point, but i doubt Blizzard sees this an issue when they come up with a class, or rather just take the hit in favour of a new class.

And when dps dks had cool, unique utility - mass grip - it got removed and restricted to tank.

That happened because of RBG.
Because Mass grip+Vortex+Beam was a gamebreaker combo, you couldn't play RBG without at least one Balance Druid and a DK, the more you had, the more often you could pull off this combo.

Rallying cry for dps warriors was a step in the right direction, now time to put back utility on the rest of the melee so it's not a role with a description "tunnel the boss and maybe sometimes interrupt". Shiv is coming back for rogues, so that's good too. But we need more.

Because Rogues are the melees that require a hand? Really?
Let's be honest, the only melees that are currently screwed are the ones like Enhance, Feral, SV, etc., not rogues.
Which to some extent has to do with the fact that they can become ranged with a button press.

[Gaidax]

This melees vs ranged is a thing that will never be resolved. Melee are for sure in mechanical disadvantage in raiding, but I am not a fan of this "solution" where they are excluded from almost all mechanics.

Mythic Cabal was annoying enough where, as ranged, I had to run around like crazy with shit exploding all around, while melee almost tunneled the boss. I hope that at some point Blizz will find some better solution than just default to tossing shitton mechanics at ranged to even the playing field.

Throughout the years we had so many iterations already, we had MoP where melee really suffered because Ranged were gods with DPS on the move tools galore and what not. Or Nighthold where melee were pretty much tunneling bosses while ranged did all the bullshit.

This just doesn't work and I personally, have no clue what a good solution could be there.

[Difuid]

I spend total 6 hours a week raiding *snip*

Really? Including getting food/pots/flasks/whatever for raids? Also during the progress phase when even the top guilds sink countless hours into the mythic raids?

[Gaidax]

Really? Including getting food/pots/flasks/whatever for raids? Also during the progress phase when even the top guilds sink countless hours into the mythic raids?

Yes, really.

Flasks are guild flasks, food is simple recipe and rest I fetch from AH, because I swim in gold anyway. It is 6 hours straight per week. Toss in 20 mins to do M+ run with guildies, which I stopped doing several weeks ago really because pointless really.

The rest of my gametime in WoW is unrelated, like 2 weeks ago I had a sudden urge to grind for Felfire Hawk and just did that, activity not related to raiding.

Another thing I did when patch hit was grinding for socketed Benthic, but that's on me really - guild did not require any. For AP, you just do table and AP emissaries and I only do WQs where you have to kill one mob for that. Got 70 just like that.


Right this moment I am completely 6 hours a week flat, I got 70 neck, all benthic I needed so I have 0 reason to log outside raids.

We're ~300 rank guild, so we are not doing any BS, we always do 6 hours a week flat for years and it is always enough for Cutting Edge. Heck we even got some Famed Slayer achievements as well with that.

[Carnagexz]

I just don't think that there really is anyway to make it more popular. Like I've said, once you go past BIS gear, mounts, titles, story/event pieces. There really isn't anything more than could be done at this point. With aging player base fewer people have the time to commit to grinding/raiding therefore those play styles aren't popular. Combined with instant gratification that is ever present in video-games, its only logical for people to go to different routes. Again salvaging a game-play mode that only small minority partake in, in spite of majority population is pointless from company point of view.

Just people need to see that being at top tier guild you are NOT authority for what most people want. Its billionaire trying to relate to avg Joe, face it.

[dcc626]

Well then these "many" need to be stop being dickbags, frankly. If some guy gets a great item once in a blue moon out of activity your holiness considers unworthy, the what of it? Just cheer for the guy and move along, you are still wrecking him in 13 other gear slots as Mythic Raider.

Some people are just dicks really. Should we design systems around spiteful people pouting over what others get? Not sure about it.

And instead of Azerite you will have some other slots from raid locked that can't TF, hurr. Whether it's Azerite, Set or Whatever it will be the same.

hey man, didnt you know? blizzard is stupid for not doing what people on the forums tell them to! /s. also, 8.3 will be interesting to see who complains about titanforging being gone when they cant luck into good gear randomly. its happened to everyone sometime. but it doesnt make up for shitty play.

[Dellinth]

raid sets with scaling bonuses. How ever the bonuses scale with difficulty and not I level. So if you’re a normal raider TF still incentivized you’re normal run but a set bonus from heroic always ensures that heroic gear is better. As is I don’t raid. There’s no point for me I play semi casually and I can get gear that’s basically as good for 1/10th of the time requirement.

[therealpeni]

Raiding in essence has to be fun.
Something that can be achieved through a lfr has zero feeling of satisfaction when you do clear it.
Raiding and getting deeper and deeper in the raid throughout several weeks or months before the boss can be farmed.
But when that boss finally goes down. It'll be alot more enjoyable than a lfr.
Nowadays you don't have to raid to see the content.
And you don't have to raid for the gear either. Just some dungeons and you're raid ready.

A low influx, if any from new players, and the long term players growing tired of it only helps to further lower the raiding pool.
Guess that's why they catered too those who just want to see it. But it steals some satisfaction from those who put in the hard work.
I doubt there's a real answer to this.

[MCitra]

Raid sets and the removal of titanforged and i would go back to raiding again. I do not understand it at all how it got passed having someone go LFR and get better gear than hc or mythic. it's beyond me.

[Gaidax]

I would certainly like raid class sets back, mostly for more mogging options that match theme of my main. I always joke in guild chat that removal of class sets is a biggest Warlock nerf in BFA.

LFR, on the other hand, is fine. I have no problem with casuals having story mode raiding. I think it could be a nice touch if some sort of Mythic-only boss make appearance again, though.

[schwarzkopf]

How about Mythic raiding have a chance to drop WoW Tokens ... that you can either use or sell on AH.

Make it the only place that r/l rewards are given for doing content.

I think THAT would be cool

[Gaidax]

How about Mythic raiding have a chance to drop WoW Tokens ... that you can either use or sell on AH.

Make it the only place that r/l rewards are given for doing content.

I think THAT would be cool

lul... that's actually hilarious. Imagine Cutting Edge giving a WoW Token. The whine would be legendary.

[themaster24]

Removing tier had a crucial impact to a lot of people I know. Really, it has more to do with the concept of sets more than tier itself. Sets gave specific outlets (Raids and PVP) unique effects on their gear that could not be obtained elsewhere. While PvP sets were usually not game changing (although still impactful), tier sets could drastically change how your spec operated (they could also be the most boring things i.e. 2p 5% increased crit for xyz Spell, 4p 20% crit damage for same spell).

I would like to see blizz bring sets back in some fashion. I wouldn't mind the idea of an item that enhanced a piece of gear, making it a part of a set. Different content could drop tokens that were associated with different sets. This would be perfect if blizz didn't want to go through the trouble of making spec specific sets ever again, because they could just make generalized ones (they could maybe have things like Visions of perfection, where they tied to a specs major CD or something to make it feel more Class-based). They could have a couple of different sets per content type, in order to freshen it up.

WQ/Emissaries could have very basic sets, such as increased secondaries, reduced damage taken by a small %, increased move speed. PvP sets would be what they used to be before, mostly endurance based with the occasional utility/offense boost. Raid would have the most interesting/compelling bonuses, typically centered around single target and possibly light aoe/utility. M+ could have more AoE/speed/healing focused bonuses:

Some Spec Specific M+ Examples (I know, but still)

"When your Chain Lightning hits at least 4 targets, your next Earthquake does 20% more damage and reduces enemy movement speed by 10%. Max 5 stacks."

"Every 3rd Whirlwind empowers your next Rampage, causing it deal an additional 50% damage when striking extra targets, and giving your party Blood-Soaked Rage, increasing Leech for 8 seconds."

"Taking damage from more than 3 sources while under the effects of Shield of the Righteous has a chance to make your next Light of the Protector heal for an additional 25% and heal all nearby allies for 50% of the amount healed.

[Zenfoldor]

Tier sets. Hey, if you think it will hurt Mythic+, I'm okay with only letting the sets work in the raid....but PLEASE bring back tier sets.